The Role of Incentives in Health - Closing the Gap.

Incentives motivate individuals to act in a certain way. Incentives are everywhere and in everything; they are woven into the very fabric of our lives. To address the issue of spiraling health care costs, incentive programs must be put into place to discourage the behaviors driving the growth of these costs.

Toward a Contemporary Definition of Health.

Aristotle saw that the striving of humanity was toward being well - a physical, mental and spiritual state where life flourished. A contemporary definition of health recognizes that disease and disability can and often do co-exist with wellness. In this new conception, health is transformed from a state that requires the absence of disease to a state where the central theme is the fullness of life.

Trends in Biometric Health Indices Within an Employer-Sponsored Wellness Program With Outcome-Based Incentives.

Purpose: To evaluate changes in employees' biometrics over time relative to outcome-based incentive thresholds.

Design: Retrospective cohort analysis of biometric screening participants (n = 26 388).

Setting: Large employer primarily in Western United States.

Predicting cost of care using self-reported health status data.

Background: We examined whether self-reported employee health status data can improve the performance of administrative data-based models for predicting future high health costs, and develop a predictive model for predicting new high cost individuals.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study used data from 8,917 Safeway employees self-insured by Safeway during 2008 and 2009. We created models using step-wise multivariable logistic regression starting with health services use data, then socio-demographic data, and finally adding the self-reported health status data to the model.